I love the work of Shintaro Ohata. His canvases are beautiful on their own but, when he mixes painting and sculpture, he creates optical illusions that take his art to a whole new level.

The sculpture and the painting merge into one with lighting that is not even there. The 3D people in his scene seem to be illuminated by the light sources in the painting—which of course don't exist. He just uses the same tones to render the overall illumination onto the sculptures, creating an atmospheric effect and furthering the illusion of lighting in the painting itself.

When you look at them from a close up, they seem to mix into a single reality. The canvas itself becomes a window to different world because the sculpture breaks that window. Even while his work is not photorealistic, the end result feels incredibly real. [Yukari-Art via Gizmodo en Español]